Saving Mankind
by SunniGummi
Summary: Zombie apocalypse. The virus spreads, turning everyone into drooling zombies. Without further ado, the Cullens decide to rid the country of these silly, little stinkers. Two-shot. Warnings: Humor, gore and ... well, zombies. Oh! And Emmett, of course.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer - not me! Definitely not me!  
**

**Hey there, guys! **

**After a very disappointing season of The Walking Dead and talking about how to survive a zombie apocalypse, my brain went all funny and then farted and **

**... um ... **

**_this_ happened:**

* * *

The newscaster was telling them of a newly emerging infectious disease - some weird kind of plague running over the country. It had been the top theme for more than five days already, and it was really starting to make even them nervous.

Carlisle sat on the couch in the living room, his elbows resting on his knees, while he followed the news with calm seriousness. His wife was right next to him, and she held a hand over her mouth as pictures of infected people and their victims were shown. Doctors were at a loss with that new kind of virus that could quickly change people in a way they had never seen before.

The epidemic had reached Washington, moving in from both the east and the south.

People in the listed areas and counties were supposed to stay inside, lock their doors and make sure to stay as far away from infected persons as possible. Clallam County hadn't been named yet, so people were still following their daily routine as though nothing in the world had changed.

"So it's true," Esme said in a shaky voice. "It's really happening. And soon it'll reach Forks."

"I'm fairly sure they are doing their best to research this odd virus and find a cure, darling," Carlisle responded while letting his hand run up and down her back. She looked so worried that he just wanted to bring comfort to her, even though he wasn't sure if there would indeed be something to help stop the sickness from breaking out or at least something to stop the virus from spreading further.

"Ehm," Alice suddenly uttered before slowly turning around to look at her parents. "Not just _soon_, Mom. More like _now_."

Carlisle jumped up from the couch and hurried to stand next to his petite daughter, who was currently looking out of the French windows into the garden and the forest line.

A person was stumbling out from between two firs, looking positively lost.

"Is that … Jacob Black?" Carlisle asked and squinted out of the windows.

Emmett, who had heard his father's question, was with him in the blink of an eye and also gazed out.

He snorted with laughter. "Yup, Pops, it is."

It seemed to be incredibly amusing to the muscular boy to see a completely naked Jacob Black aimlessly roaming their backyard, all the while drooling and moaning.

"What is Jacob Black doing here?" Esme asked, approaching her husband and children. "And why isn't he wearing any clothes when he comes over for a visit?"

"He is infected, love," Carlisle stated, noticing the deep bite marks on the pack members arms … and the missing half of his face.

"Let me take care of it," Emmett said in a cocky tone of voice and wrenched the French windows open to step outside.

"Emmett, don't!" Esme called but Carlisle held her back. "He won't get hurt, Esme. And we need to see how they react to our species." The newscaster had told them that the virus-infected people were incredibly aggressive and attacked every single person they would see. And then they started killing with a brutality that showed there was no humanity left in these things - they ate their victims alive.

Outside, Emmett marched over to the dark-haired boy with large steps, only halting when he was about five feet from him.

Jacob lifted his head, his eyes milky and unmoving. He looked at Emmett, then let out a moan after a long moment of silence and then – just like that - looked in a different direction, walking on.

"Hm." Emmett thought about that. So a zombie mutt didn't really care for him, only for humans. _Interesting fact._

"Hey, mongrel," he said to get the boy's attention once more. "Lost your pack to a bunch of slow and dim-witted zombies?" he asked and grinned. "Thumbs up!"

A displeased moan filled the air.

Then Jacob snapped his head around and approached the vampire, his hands outstretched and his face distorted with rage. It looked _ridiculous, _especially because Jacob was drooling, making the foul-smelling saliva mixed with coagulated blood drip all over his naked body and his dangling thingy.

When he was close enough - it took a moment for Jacob to finally reach him - Emmett just placed a hand on the back of Jacob's head to keep him in place, then punched a hole through his forehead.

The mutt sagged to the ground and didn't move anymore.

"Cool," Emmett commented, then turned around and walked back to the house, blood and rotting tissue dripping from his arm onto their manicured lawn.

His family gave way when he reached the porch and the big French windows.

"He tried to attack you, Emmett!" Esme cried, horrified by what she had just witnessed.

"The little bugger just wanted to play," he replied with a smile and shook his head like he wanted to sigh and say 'Zombies will be zombies'.

"You just killed Jacob Black, Emmett. I'm not sure if that was really necessary," Carlisle mildly rebuked when his son was standing right in front of him.

"You can only kill zombies by destroying their brain," he explained while stepping into the house.

To give him some room, the rest of the family went back to the living room, patiently waiting for Emmett to give them a little more details about this.

"Emmett!" Esme suddenly screeched when she saw him dripping gore onto her beautiful snow-white rug. "Don't you dare move and soil my floor, young man!" she called to him while retrieving paper towels from the kitchen.

She was with him again in a matter of seconds, holding the towels underneath his dripping hand in an attempt to spare the expensive rug and parquet floor from further stains. Unfortunately she wasn't quick enough and a chunk of something nasty plopped to the ground.

"Oops, sorry 'bout that," Emmett said, bent down to pick the spongy thing up and threw it out into the garden through the open window behind him. "Brain."

Esme's eyes went wide and she put her arms akimbo.

"Did you just throw a piece of brain into my flower beds?" she asked, gasping.

"Um ..."

"Emmett!"

"No, no! It landed on the lawn, Mom," he quickly said in an attempt to calm her.

"If I find pieces of Jacob Black's brain between my flowers you'll be in real trouble, mister!"

"Jacob Black?" Edward asked with a gasp and sped towards his mother and brother, looking past them into the garden. He had heard them talking while descending the stairs, and it was more than just a little unsettling to him.

In any other situation he would be glad to see the mutt lying crumpled on the ground, but right now he was just getting panicky. "Oh no," he breathed. "_Bella!_"

Now the rest of the family understood the severity of the situation. The zombie apocalypse had hit Forks.

"I'm sure she is safe, Edward," Carlisle said and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Charlie wouldn't let anything happen to her."

"I'll drive over to her house to make sure. I can keep both of them safe," Edward replied and fished his car keys from the pocket of his jeans.

"You go do that. Be careful, son."

With a curt nod, Edward vanished from the room and a moment later they could hear the roaring of the engine of his Volvo and then the car speeding down the driveway.

Emmett had wiped Jacob off his arm as best as he could, then he walked into the living room and plonked down on the couch next to his wife. He made to put an arm around her but she scooted away. "Ew, don't touch me. You smell."

"Yes, like rotting dog," Alice confirmed and sat down on her husband's lap in order to get a little more distance between herself and her reeking brother.

"So …," Emmett sighed and rubbed his hands on his upper thighs. "What do we do now?"

"Nothing," Rosalie replied, obviously completely unconcerned by zombies occupying their home town and eating everyone they knew.

"Oh come on, babe," Emmett tried to coax her into helping. "It'll be fun."

"What do I care if all these idiotic humans are turned into zombies?" she replied while checking her nails.

"I think it's a good idea if we try and help," Carlisle threw in, sitting down on the armrest of the couch right next to his stubborn, blonde daughter. "As long as we don't provoke them, they won't attack us." Yes, vampires weren't exactly zombie diet material, so they were pretty much safe.

Emmett's face lit up like Christmas came early, and he looked around at his siblings. "Where shall we go first?"

Jasper contemplated this, then said, "School. It's the biggest place around here." He liked the idea of spending the rest of the day fighting, and he wanted to kill as many zombies as possible.

Oh yes, Jasper was looking forward to this just as much as Emmett did.

"Great, I'll just put on my boots and we're good to go," Emmett uttered, then ascended the stairs with his brother in tow. Jasper figured that he couldn't win a battle in dress pants and putting on a pair of steel-toed boots like Emmett would couldn't hurt, either.

They came back downstairs in what looked like army gear, and they were joking around, barely able to contain their excitement.

"Coming Rose?" Emmett asked when he had reached his wife on the couch again.

She sighed. "Do we really have to do this?"

"Right now people get infected quicker than anyone would have anticipated, transforming everyone in brainless cannibals," Carlisle answered, hoping Rosalie would consider to help save humans from becoming extinct.

"And they smell," Emmett added and saw that she was giving in. The sooner they would get rid of all the zombies, the sooner the air would be clean again.

"All right, but next time I want to go dancing you'll come with me without complaining, got it?"

"Of course, Rose!"

She nodded at him, then hurried to her room. Alice was getting changed as well, because she feared for her new designer slacks. Blood stains were a bitch to get out of clothes again.

"You are planning on killing zombies dressed like _this_?" Jasper asked disbelievingly when his blonde sister stalked down the stairs, looking up at him with an expressionless look on her face.

The problem weren't her clothes, but more the shoes she had chosen to put on for this day.

Black knee high boots with heels so thin and high, Jasper wasn't sure if she really wanted to kill zombies or win a pavement princess look-alike contest.

"Killer heels. Nice one, babe," Emmett praised and smirked at his beautiful wife, who wriggled her eyebrows at him.

"Fine, if you can manage it." Jasper shrugged his shoulders, then smiled when his wife came bouncing towards him.

Rosalie suddenly made a face. "Emmett? I don't want gore and mucus on me."

"Never fear, fair maiden," he replied and retrieved a gun from his back pocket, immediately handing it over to her.

"Cool." was all she said while looking it over.

"Always aim for the head, babe, always the head."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," she replied, but was barely listening to her husband's advice. She _really_ liked the gun.

"Is that a _gun_? You have a _gun_, Emmett?"

_Oops._ "It's for paintball, Pops. Just for paintball."

Ha, not it wasn't.

Carlisle gave him a scrutinising look. "And how is a paintball gun helping in a situation like this?"

"We have to make do with what we have," Emmett replied cunningly and saw his father nod at that answer.

"All right, everyone's ready?" Jasper asked and looked around.

"I think I'll head to the hospital, to see if I can be of any help," Carlisle told them. There might be a lot of injured people, and he would make damn sure to help them all. "Are you coming with me, Esme?"

"Definitely not!" Esme replied, indignant to say the least. "I don't want any of these confused people coming in here and soiling my floor!" In her hands she held a muck fork and a wooden spoon, determined to defend their home of anything nasty wanting to come in.

They weren't sure how far she would get with her wooden spoon … but sure, go for it, Mom.

"They aren't confused, Momma, they are _zombies,_" Emmett clarified.

"Fine, zombies … I don't want them in here, so don't you dare bring one home, you hear? I mean it!"

All of them held their hands up and took a step back, not willing to anger their mother while she was holding a dung fork in her hands.

Then they quickly filed out of the house, because they didn't want to waste any time. _Zombie-killing, hell yeah!_

Emmett threw his car keys over to Jasper, who looked too excited for words. They jumped into the red Jeep and Jasper turned the key in the ignition. "Yeehaw!" he exclaimed and chased the car down the winding path in the direction of the street leading to Forks.

It didn't take long for them to reach Forks Highschool, and they noticed that it also hadn't taken long for the virus to reach it.

Blood puddles and body parts were decorating the parking lot, a few zombies were aimlessly moving around like tourists who have gotten lost.

Jumping out of the car, Jasper immediately stretched out, his golden eyes gleaming with happiness and bellicosity.

Emmett was grinning like a Cheshire Cat and popped his knuckles while taking a few steps in order to stand next to his brother.

There was the smell of decay in the air, and it had gotten stronger the closer they got to Forks.

"I'm not sure if I can do it. They smell so bad," Rosalie uttered and held a hand over her mouth and nose while trying not to gag.

"It'll smell even worse in a couple of days, babe. We need to get rid of them now … just don't breathe."

"All right." She nodded her head in agreement. "Where do we start?"

"I think I knock these ones here out, then we can head inside," Jasper suggested and got nods of consent from his siblings. "Hey, where's Alice?"

Behind a large bush they detected a head full of spiky black hair peeking out and hurried towards her. But she was neither hurt nor in any kind of danger - the big, happy smile on her face was proof of that.

The tiny pixie was currently busying herself with poking a zombie with seriously sallow skin in his bloated stomach with a stick, making him fart out decomposition gases. She giggled at the funny noises.

"Why are you doing this, love?" Jasper asked and placed a hand on her shoulder, watching the zombie moan and try to squirm away. But since he was missing his arms and legs, he didn't get very far.

"I like to poke things with a stick," she replied with a shrug of her shoulders.

"And ... who is that?"

"That's my lab partner," Alice explained and poked him some more. "Even as a corpse he's still funny."

The screeching of brakes distracted them for a moment and they looked around only to see that Edward had made it to school. He parked his car right in the middle of the parking lot and got out, raking his fingers through his hair. He looked around in confusion until Emmett said, "What's wrong, bro?"

"Bella … she wasn't at home. I couldn't find her. I thought … maybe she went to school."

Suddenly Rose had something to say after she let out a low whistle. "Just look at the huge dent in the side of Tyler Crowley's van. Looks like he hit someone with it."

Edward sped towards the white van, because there wasn't just a dent – there was a trail of blood down the side.

He ran his fingers through the red liquid, then sniffed it. His face immediately crumpled up in misery. "This is Bella's blood … _oh my god, why did she have to go to school on a day like this?_ _Why is she always so dutiful and studious?_" Then he sunk to his knees and moaned, "Nooo, Bella ..."

"Oookay ... let's go inside right away. Come, love," Jasper said and pulled his wife away from the smelly torso with the attached moaning head. Yes, that's all that was left of Alice's lab partner.

They entered the building and decided to head for the office first. Edward left in search of his girlfriend, so only the four of them were left.

The office looked like someone had tried to paint a picture with blood on the walls. The whole room was upside down, and as they walked around the counter, they could see the secretary and someone else lying on the floor. … or what was left of them. A trail of blood led away from them and into the principal's office.

"Uh, let's check it out," Emmett said excitedly and knocked on the door.

"This is a freakin' zombie school and you _knock_?" Rosalie whispered to him, unable to grasp why he would do something like that. Everyone around here was dead, they could tell by just sniffing the air and smelling nothing but the odour of decomposition.

A mix between a moan and a growl could be heard coming from the other side of the door and so they entered.

Mr. Greene, their dear (zombie) principal, sat in his office chair and munched away on a leg in his hands, trying to hold it tightly but having difficulties since one of his hands was gone and his bloody stump was of no use.

"Whose do you that is?" Emmett asked and pointed at it.

Rose looked like she thought about this for a moment. "Mrs. Cope."

"I always knew he liked his women with a little meat on them," Emmett said and chuckled.

"Hey Mr. Greene," Alice greeted when she danced into the room, coming to a halt right next to Rose.

Their principal just gurgled in acknowledgement, then continued trying to rip chunks of meat and fat from the leg with his broken teeth. It looked like someone had tried to fend him off and nearly succeeded in smashing his face in … with a metal rod or something. But he was still 'alive' and hungry.

"Aw, I always knew he had a thing for Mrs. Cope," Alice said and crossed her arms, watching the man with soft eyes.

Not wanting to lose any more time, Rose lifted her hand with the gun in it and shot their principal right between the eyes. He slumped down in his chair, his head hitting the table top with a loud bang.

"Hey … ," Alice complained and slapped her sister's arm. "I liked watching him."

"There will be a lot more to watch, Alice."

"Oh, okay."

"Where do we go next?" Jasper asked and peeked into the room.

"Hm, cafeteria?" Alice suggested and he nodded his head in response, smiling at his wife.

"Follow me, little lady."

All of them left the office, then headed for the cafeteria building.

This place was – in comparison to the other places – _crowded_.

More than eighty or ninety of these crazies were moving around, bumping into each other and the many tables and chairs in this room like drunks.

"Great, smells like a slaughterhouse with a defective cooling system in here," Rosalie remarked and wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"Helloooo fellow classmates!" Emmett greeted and much to his surprise a few of them really turned towards him and groaned.

"I always knew I was the most popular guy in school," he said cockily before walking up to a decaying zombie and pressing its eyeballs into the back of its head, drawing one last moan from the creature.

Jasper squinted at one particular person in the middle of the room. "Isn't that -"

"_BELLA!_" Edward shouted the moment he entered the cafeteria. He immediately hurried towards her, taking her hand in his and giving it a gentle squeeze.

"Ugh …," Rosalie muttered in disgust. "she looks gross."

And she indeed did.

Her clothes were covered in blood stains, ripped in a few places and it looked like she had vomited all over herself at some point. Or someone else had puked all over her, who knew. But it was more than likely that she did it herself, _ugh_.

Her eyes were staring straight ahead, and they looked more than just a little dead. Her once chocolate brown orbs were now milky and bulged out of their sockets. It looked even more grotesque, because her left eyelid had been ripped off. Deep bite marks, gaping wounds and gashes were covering the left side of her neck and shoulder, and she was missing two fingers of her right hand. The dark hair framing her face still looked more or less the same, just a little sticky and dirty and dishevelled.

Her nose was crooked and obviously broken, and her bottom lip was missing. She must have gnawed it off and gobbled it down – but it was only a matter of time until that would have happened, no surprise here.

She was standing in front of her boyfriend, swaying a little as one of her feet seemed to point in the completely wrong direction and therefore was unable to support her weight anymore.

Edward steadied her, all the while mumbling "My love" and "It's going to be all right, Bella" while trying to ignore her outer appearance and her smell, that was now repulsive and not sweet and alluring anymore.

"Dude," Emmett said and took in a sharp breath. "I hope you got some in the past, because I feel a little gloomy about your future together."

Edward narrowed his eyes at him.

"I see little reason to be pessimistic about this," Alice threw in and walked up to Edward and Bella with a tiny spray can in her hand. She had rummaged through a backpack lying on one of the tables and found a breath spray.

"She'll be as good as new in a moment," she said happily and sprayed a little in Bella's gaping hole. Yes, without a bottom lip she would never ever be able to close her mouth again, but she didn't really seem to notice or mind.

The sound that emitted from Bella's throat just then was a confused guttural moan that had a hint of disgust to it. Then she sneezed … or something, and showered the front of Edward's shirt with mucus, pus and blood. Plus the force behind this weird zombie sneezer effectively dislocated her jaw, now making it impossible for her to close her mouth again. She drew away then, pretty disinterested by the people surrounding her, but was kept in place by Edward's hand around hers.

"Alice! Stop that!" Edward rounded on his petite pixie sister, who was trying not to distort his mouth in disgust at seeing Bella's fluids on his shirt seeping through the fabric and probably onto his bare chest underneath.

"I was just trying to help! You know she smells!"

"But it is none of your business, when -"

While Alice and Edward were arguing, Bella had somehow managed to pull her hand from her boyfriend's grasp and now she slowly stumbled and waddled like a toddler with a full nappy in the direction of the counter. She really was comparable with a toddler, except that she was taller and deader and not quite as articulate right now.

Alice and Edward stopped their little quarrel when they heard Rosalie's voice ring out over the moaning of their zombified classmates.

"And I always thought she didn't like Lauren Mallory."

They turned around to see what she was talking about, just like Emmett and Jasper.

Bella was squatting next to a body lying on the floor, five fellow zombies surrounding her. She had something long and bloody in her hands, a large intestine, and was trying to chew on it, trying to bite it in half - which didn't work because her jaw was still dislocated. _Silly Bella._

So the only thing she succeeded in doing right then was drooling into Lauren's open stomach.

"Well, to me it looks like she likes her very much," Jasper commented with a smirk on his lips. He liked being in school without having to worry about losing control over his bloodlust. Everyone was already dead and transforming into stinking zombies – zombies he was allowed to kill. _Pure bliss._

"Ooh Bella," Edward said, a pained expression on his face. He approached her, then crouched down opposite her, trying to pull the bowel from her hands and teeth. A moan of displeasure emitted from her throat and she held onto her snack tightly.

With a dissatisfied sigh, Edward let go and Bella fell backwards, lying on her back now like a turtle. But she didn't seem to care, because when she fell her jaw had popped back into place and now she was able to fully enjoy gnawing on her delicious piece of Lauren Mallory.

"Bella, don't," Edward said, now trying to coax her into letting go of that thing. She had succeeded in penetrating it with her teeth, and now brown stuff was flowing out of the tear she had managed to make, covering her hands and the part she was about to shove back into her mouth.

He had seen enough, so he just ripped it from her hands and ignored her moaned protests as he pulled her up into a standing position, turning her away so she wouldn't be able to see this little buffet anymore.

Rosalie snorted at that movement, making her younger brother frown.

"She, uhm," Rosalie said between snickers and carefully pointed at the back of Bella's head, "she's missing a piece."

Edward spun his girlfriend around and gasped at seeing the huge hole in the back of Bella's head. There was quite a chunk of her skull missing, giving them direct view of what was left of her brain.

Seeing that shocked Edward beyond belief; his mouth opened and closed but he was unable to form a coherent thought right then and therefore couldn't say anything.

He took his eyes away from the wound, then let his gaze roam over the crowd of zombies in order to distract himself a little. _He needed to do something! Help his Bella!_

His eyes fell on someone who was stumbling in their direction, feet getting tangled up in the large intestines that were trailing out of his stomach wound, and the sight of that person made Edward's lips draw back from his teeth while a feral snarl emitted his throat.

_Mike Newton …_

"Ha, Mikey's here, not it's gonna get interesting …," Rosalie whispered to her husband, nudging him in the side so he wouldn't miss the show.

"I bet he was the one who did this to her!" Edward yelled, pure anger in his voice and eyes. After having tried to make out if the teeth marks on his girlfriend's neck had been inflicted by Mike's teeth, he picked up a chair from beside him and hit Mike in the face with it. Unfortunately he might have used a wee too much force, because Mike's rotting head detached and flew straight through the room. Jasper had to duck down quickly after having crushed someone's skull, so he wouldn't be covered in smelly Mike.

While Edward had been busy getting revenge, Bella had found a new occupation. She was trying to get to some body lying on the floor next to the window, but there were too many other zombies around, blocking her way. She made sad and frustrated moaning sounds, but the munching zombies just moved closer together like they purposely wanted to keep her out.

"Aww, she's hungry," Alice said, giving Edward a sad pout before continuing to watch his girlfriend unsuccessfully trying to reach her lunch.

"Ha, she wants a part of Tyler, I knew it! You're out of the picture, Eddie!" Emmett guffawed, then steered his attention back to the task in hand – ridding this school of these godforsaken stinking idiots, that were quite fun to play with.

Begrudgingly, Edward approached the bunch of zombies and pushed Eric Yorkie out of the way so that Bella would be able to eat something. After letting out another brainless moan, she then went for Tyler's hand and arm.

"Yum, huh, Bella?" Emmett asked in passing, and she looked at him with milky eyes while drooling onto the meaty meal in her hands.

Then he stilled for a moment, feeling immense pride while watching his wife finishing off fellow students.

Rosalie had found a new, more exciting way to get rid of the undead and show Jasper just how perfect her heels were for this occasion.

Instead of shooting all of them in the head, she had started to just push them over, then stomp down on their foreheads with her shiny metal heel. The crushing and sliming sound as the heel went in and out again was oddly entertaining to her and it effectively killed these little fuckers.

"Whoops!" she suddenly called and steadied herself with a hand on the wall. "A bit slippery here."

But then she noticed just why she had slipped. It wasn't just the gore covering the ground, but something different as well. Her husband - who had started to just beat a few zombies with a detached leg he found - had distracted her and instead of cracking the forehead of an undead girl with her heel, she had stomped down on the eye. It killed the zombie just as well, piercing her brain through the socket, but now she had an eyeball sticking to her shoe.

"Emmy," she whined. "Bring it off, I don't want to touch it."

He cracked a smile, then dropped the battered leg and was with his wife in less than a second.

She had both her hands on the wall now, and lifted her leg so Emmett could pull the eye, that was skewered on her heel and was leaking its gelatinous mass, off.

"Here you go babe," Emmett said, holding the rotting and pierced through eyeball between his fingers for her to see. "It was just a little eye, nothing to worry about."

She gave him a thankful smile and kissed his lips, before turning around in search of her next victim.

Emmett threw the little gooey thing over his shoulder so he could also go back to having fun, when his little brother let out an angry snort.

"Oops sorry, bro," he said with a sheepish smile while approaching Edward and Bella. Fumbling around in the hole in Bella's head, he retrieved the eyeball and let it drop to the floor.

"There," he said and patted her on the head, making her groan while breaking Tyler's fingers with her teeth. Then he got an idea, and thought it was a very nice thing to do. He carefully took a strand of her hair between his thumb and index finger and tried to drape it over the wound in order to cover it up and make her look as good as new. It didn't work … a moment later it came off and suddenly he had the thick strand of hair in his hand, completely with roots and a good piece of scalp.

Edward's jaw dropped, and he pulled his girlfriend to her feet, no matter her protests. She was obviously still very, _very_ hungry but Edward wanted to keep her head wound away from his clumsy oaf of a brother.

Emmett was a bit embarrassed, but then just reached out and opened Bella's hand. He placed her hair in it and curled her fingers around it so she would hold onto it. "Here, it's yours," he told her and patted her fist before taking off again.

Bella made a sound that could be interpreted as questioning, and she stared at the strand of hair with scalp attached to it in her hand. Slowly lifting it up to her mouth she bit down, trying to gnaw the skin off the long and dirty hair.

Edward tzked and pulled it from her mouth, then took it out of her hand.

"I'd like to kill Mike again for doing this to her. I would have preferred for her to be dead instead of seeing her suffer like that. Oh, my love …," he whined while looked in Bella's dead, unblinking eyes.

"Oh! Let me help you with that," Rosalie offered nicely and retrieved the gun from the backpocket of her jeans. She aimed it at Bella's head, but Edward yelled. "NO! Are you _insane_? This is my girlfriend, you hag!"

Rosalie frowned, then let her hand with the gun in it sink back to her side. "Yeah, that one's definitely a keeper ...," she remarked and rolled her eyes. She just wanted to help, but Edward was obviously never happy. Always complaining, that one.

"I'll think of something …," Edward snapped. "But first I need to get her home."

"Uhh," Jasper said and turned around, looking at his younger brother. "You cannot bring her to our home, Esme would flip. No zombies, she said."

"But Bella is my _girlfriend_!" Edward yelled, outraged that no one understood his feelings for this once sweet-smelling human.

"Mom explicitly said no zombies, period. She doesn't want them in the house. You better heed her warning or else," Jasper told him while picking up a fork from the floor and throwing it at a zombie, pinning it's middle finger to the wall just for the heck of it.

"You wanna _turn_ her?" Alice squeaked from one corner of the room. She sat on top of the serving counter, holding a bloody beef fork in her hand like a sceptre and fumbling around with it. "Edward, I don't think it'll work! Please rethink your decision."

"Mind your own business," he growled, then said in a soft tone of voice to his girlfriend, "Come Bella, let's get you out of here."

She groaned and stumbled against his chest, soaking his once white shirt with her nasty rotten smelling drool and thick, slow moving blood from her neck wound.

"Try to find the missing part of her brain! And her fingers! And hold on to her hair, or she'll be running around with a bald spot for all eternity!" Emmett, always trying to be helpful. He liked treasure hunts, hopefully Edward did, too.

"But even if you don't find the missing pieces of her skull, I have really pretty hats at home! No one will ever know that she's a bit … airy up there." _Wow, Alice was just as helpful as her big brother!_

Edward narrowed his rapidly darkening eyes at them, before turning around and leading his stumbling and incoherently moaning girlfriend out of the cafeteria.

Jasper and Emmett laughed at their little brother's stupidity. Bella had clearly reached her date of expiry, and judging by the smell that was emitting her pores, mouth, smashed skull and other gashing wounds, she had also very well exceeded it.

"Jazz, what's your score?" Emmett asked and nodded his head towards his blonde brother.

"Forty-eight."

Emmett's jaw dropped.

"Rosie?"

"Thirty."

He crinkled up his nose.

"Alice?" he asked and hoped that at least his baby sister had killed less zombies than he had.

But there was no answer.

Emmett frowned, scanning the room for his little sister. "Hey ... where's Alice?"

"She was _right there_! Where did she go?" Jasper said with widened eyes, panic clear in his voice.

"Calm down and just _listen,_" Rosalie said and they immediately fell silent and strained their ears for any sounds except for the quite irritating moaning of the zombies.

And there it was – giggling. Alice was giggling about something, then clapped her hands in delight.

They followed the noise that would lead them to Alice and found her outside. She was standing at the bottom of the stairs in front of the school and beamed up at them when she saw her siblings and husband.

"Look," she said and pointed to a zombie standing at the stairhead. The zombie moaned, and Alice called, "Come on, Mr. Mason, come down here!"

The zombie stretched one arm out and then attempted to descend the stairs, but unfortunately – he fell. Without the normal human reflexes, he crashed face first into the concrete, smashing his face and shoving his nasal bone into his brain.

Alice giggled again, then shoved the guy out of the way with her foot . "Uff."

Emmett started laughing. "What -"

"They are just so incredibly _slow_!" Alice exclaimed and made her eyes go wide, like she herself couldn't believe it.

Then they noticed that the shoe laces of each dead zombie lying at the bottom of the stairs – thirteen in total – had been tied together.

"Ha, that's brilliant, Allie!" Emmett exclaimed and held his hand up. Alice had to jump up to slap his hand, and then she giggled again.

"What's your count, little sis?"

"Twenty-nine," she said, but when she saw Rosalie chasing her heel through the empty eye socket of a student, she corrected, "Twenty-eight. That one's Rosalie's."

"I didn't mean to muck up your score, but that one was still twitching," Rosalie explained apologetically, but Alice just smiled and moved her hand in a fashion that told her to forget about it. Nothing worth mentioning ... there were still enough zombies around. _Heck, the whole country was overrun by these brainless creatures!_

"What do we do next?" she asked. "I'm sure there are plenty more."

"Let's just follow the zombie moans, darling," Jasper suggested and put an arm around his wife's shoulders.

They arrived at the football field just half a minute later and were delighted at seeing that there were indeed quite a few more zombies left for them to play with.

"Ha, and I always thought Coach Clapp would have butteflies in his tummy whenever he sees Mrs. Hammond." Emmett grinned. The coach was indeed looking at the school nurse, making some kind of grunting noises because she was currently gnawing on a skeletonized hand.

"You know, with this huge hole in his stomach he really looks slimmer," Rosalie said, musingly.

It was a known fact that the Coach was trying to lose a pound or two, because he was sure that once he succeeded, he would look exactly like he had twenty years ago.

And as if the Coach had heard her, he lifted his arms like he wanted to show off his 'flat' stomach and his 'huge' biceps.

"Looking good, Coach Clapp!" Emmett called and gave him a thumbs up.

"Too bad, now he finally found the right diet for himself but still has immense cravings."

The coach had finally managed to rip the hand out of the nurses grasp and eagerly shoved the thumb into his mouth, gnawing noisily on the bare bone.

But the nurse wasn't too happy about the loss of her meal, and so she tried to pull the hand back out of his mouth.

"Aw, don't fight about that. There's plenty for everyone!" Emmett exclaimed, then let his gaze roam in hopes he might find another hand or some equally tasty severed body part.

He found a whole arm, barely gnawed on, and called, "Here you go, Mrs. Hammonds! Catch!"

He threw the arm over to her, but unfortunately with a little too much force. It hit her in the face and chest, making her fall over and spear her head on a rake lying in the grass right behind her.

"Oops," Emmett uttered and bit his lip. It definitely wasn't his intention to kill the school nurse like that. He had just tried to feed her, dammit!

Jasper drew in a sharp breath when he saw the Coach dropping the hand and approaching the nurse lying on the ground. "Oh well, love never dies, right? You just killed his lover!"

"... what the heck is he doing now? Does he still have feelings for her? I mean, now she's even deader than he is!" Rosalie exclaimed. "Ugh, necrophilia is so gross ..."

"Oh – oh no, _see_? He just wants to take a bite out of her meal. Well, that's okay I guess," Emmett said, then turned around to look for a new, cool weapon.

"Baseball anyone?" he asked after having spotted a baseball bat leaning against a car that was lying on it's side on the big field.

Alice's face lit up. "Great idea!"

"I'll get some more bats and a ball," Jasper called, and vanished into the locker rooms, only to emerge a moment later, carrying everything they'd need for a fun game.

He held a bat out for his wife to take, but she shook his head and snatched the ball from his other hand. "I'm a pitcher."

"All right, then get in position."

The plan was to knock as many zombies out as possible, with either the ball or the bats.

It worked quite nicely, until Emmett got yet another idea.

"Hey Allie," he called. "Let's play through Coach Clapp!"

She laughed at his brilliant idea and moved her hand to signal him that he should go stand a bit further away. "Okay, ready?"

Emmett swung the bat a couple of times, then called, "Ready!"

Alice really was a great pitcher, and she practically shot the ball right through the huge hole in their Coachs stomach. He was still busy trying to gobble up as much meat as he could, and so he didn't even notice what was happening around – or through - him.

Emmett saw the ball speeding towards him and hit it with the bat, determined to make it go as far as possible to knock some other zombies out.

But the angle was very unfortunate. The ball went through the Coach's head and dropped to the ground when it came out again. The Coach did the same, obviously, as he was now dead.

"Oh, _come on_!" Emmett complained, frustrated that he had killed yet another member of the school staff. But technically they had already been dead, so at least his father couldn't interpret his behaviour as disrespect towards authority figures. He took a few steps until he reached the body, and he crouched down.

Inspecting the extra hole he had just given the rotting man, he pulled back a little when his little sister peeked at him through the Coach's head and winked.

"At least he won't miss Mrs. Hammonds anymore," she told her brother soothingly and straightened up again.

"Let's finish up here."

And so they did. There weren't many zombies left anyways, Jasper was obviously on a roll and punched and killed every single undead person he saw. Well, except for his siblings, as they were a different kind of dead, of course.

In the end Emmett's count had gone up again, and he was second after Jasper. The girls said they had stopped counting, but Emmett was sure they were just ashamed of how little they had finished off in comparison to them.

After that they roamed the school grounds and some more school buildings again, to make sure there wasn't a single one left behind. Happy with their thorough clean-up of the school, they made their way back to Emmett's Jeep in the school's parking lot.

"So ... what do we do now?" Rosalie asked while looking at herself in the side-view mirror of her husband's car. She wanted to make sure she didn't have any speckles of zombie-nastiness in her face and that her make-up was still as flawless as it should be.

"Well, we could go home ...," Emmett said slowly, but the smile on his face told them that he would prefer the next option. "... or play a little more."

"More!" Alice squealed and Jasper laughed at her enthusiasm.

"You heard the lady," he told Emmett and smirked.

Then they turned towards Rosalie, to see what she would want to do. "Sure, why not," she said casually and shrugged her shoulders once. "Let's kill some more of these little stinkers."

"HELL YEAH!" Emmett and Jasper exclaimed and all of them high-fived.

Then they climbed into the car and left the parking lot with screeching tires, already looking forward to their next stop where they would continue to smash skulls and destroy brains, glad they couldn't tire and still had a whole country full of rotting zombies ahead of them.

* * *

"And that," Emmett said and leaned back on the couch, folding his hands behind his head, "is how we would save mankind."

Everyone gaped at him.

He grinned, proud of his awesome story, but Carlisle and Esme just continued to stare at him with their mouths agape.

A smirk immediately started to play on Jasper's lips - he must have enjoyed the story even though he might not admit it.

Alice's eyes were shining brightly before she looked thoughtful for a moment. "I do like to poke things with a stick," she said musingly.

Edward just rolled his eyes and snorted, then focussed his attention back to the book in his hands.

"Hey," Alice suddenly said and looked at Emmett, "what happened to Bella?"

Emmett blinked at her owlishly, before a frown appeared on his forehead.

"Yeah, Eddie, what happened to Bella?" he asked and looked at his little brother, curious if he would tell them what he had done with zombie Bella after they had left the cafeteria. Like he would know.

"You're an _idiot_," Edward snapped, shut his book angrily with a loud thud and left the room.

"Huh?" Emmett asked and looked around, feeling a little confused now. "What? What did I do?"

"All right." Rosalie sighed, closed her magazine and leaned forward to place it on the coffee table. "Come on, Emmett," she said and patted his knee. "Let's get some blood into you."

Standing up she seized his hand in hers, then pulled him up and into the direction of the front door.

* * *

**Sorry 'bout that, just needed to get it out of my system ...  
**

**Aaah, feeling much better now ;-)**

**Please feel free to review, guys!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Here we go, a second chapter!**

**I just finished a paper about walking corpses and fairies, and then remembered that I still had a half-finished chapter on my laptop somewhere about... yup, zombies! Fits perfectly because with the help of this chapter I can let something happen that Ruby has been waiting for :D**

**I hope you like it, but if you don't - that's too bad. Even though I have no clue how anyone can not enjoy reading gory things *shrug* ****Just go and read something different, I don't mind.**

**Everyone else: Please go ahead and have fun!**

* * *

Driven by panic Edward ran through the school, his girlfriend – or what was left of her – in tow while he searched the hallways and classrooms for her missing parts. The floors were littered with bones that could only vaguely be recognised as either arms, legs or ribs and there was so much blood that it looked like someone had tried to wipe the floor with it. The whole school was a mess… and in between all this scenery Edward wanted to find Bella's missing fingers in hopes Carlisle could sew them back on. And if he refused – he would just have to do it himself. But Bella was like a daughter to Carlisle, so he was dead certain that he would help him heal this precious creature that currently smelled... a little less appealing than she usually did.

Edward couldn't give up the hope that she was still in there somewhere. Trapped in this rotting shell, screaming and pleading for help and naturally he would be the one to save her.

He found tons of fingers.

Some were obviously not the right ones as they were hairy men's fingers or the skin on the finger looked tanned which didn't match her fair skin tone… and he saw so many thumbs, but Bella still had both of hers. Admittedly, he wasn't sure for how much longer as she seemed to be hungry enough that she considered eating her own flesh to satiate her never-ending appetite for fresh as well as rotten meat.

He picked up random limbs that lay around and held them out to her to make her gnaw on them instead of on herself, but every time he pulled her along, she managed to drop them and then stumbled over them. He tried carrying her on his back as he didn't want to waste any time, but she drooled all over his neck and having that gooey substance run down his back and shoulders and the smell that came with it was actually rather bothersome and distracting. He was on a mission here! He couldn't afford to get distracted!

After a while he decided that it didn't matter, that he could check the fingers at home or do some DNA tests to make sure he could make his Bella whole again. Too bad she was still lacking a bottom lip and an eye lid...

Next to an open locker that was filled with what looked suspiciously like blood vomit and hair, he found a discarded backpack and grabbed it, then started collecting everything that looked even remotely like a finger.

He just hoped desperately that her beautiful, delicate fingers weren't rotting away in some zombie's stomach, or that he would only find the gnawed off bone.

A backpack full of no less than thirty-two fingers – or what was left of them – and Edward was good to go… until Bella slipped on a severed ear and fell on her bum. She sat there like a child in a sand box and had seemingly forgotten how to use her legs to get up on her feet again. So she turned and made to crawl over to a yummy looking head that was skewered on a broomstick, when Edward sighed and grabbed her underneath her arms to pull her up into a standing position. The smell of her rotting brain hit him and he had to keep himself from gagging – it would be nothing but rude and he was still a gentleman after all. But now he realised that his girlfriend was still missing pieces of her skull and brain.

How in the world was he supposed to find that?

Anger bubbled up inside of him as he thought about how Tyler's van must have crushed this poor, innocent girl standing right next to him, and then Mike Newton attacking her and feasting on her brain, touching her with his filthy hands.

But he couldn't just stand here and get angry over things that he couldn't change … now it was time to free Bella from her rotting cage before it was too late.

He flung the backpack over his shoulder, then grabbed Bella around the elbow to steady her while slowly walking her towards the main entrance of the school. They needed to get out of here – this was no place for her to be in.

She moaned in protest whenever he tried to make her pick up her pace, and so he settled for five steps a minute. When she refused to descend the stairs and pulled in the direction of half a corpse lying on the ground, something inside of him snapped.

Fine, if Bella wanted to be stubborn, he could be, too.

He threw her over her shoulder - still being extremely careful because he wasn't sure if her brain was still attached to its stem and he didn't want it to fall out - he made his way over to his car standing in the middle of the school's parking lot. He evaded the puddles of blood and intestines as he didn't wish to stain the interior of his beautiful car. No, his pretty silver baby was going to survive the zombie apocalypse without a speck of blood on it, he would make sure of that.

He huffed when he detected a bloody hand print on the side of his car. _Who would do something like that?! That was just plain rude and showed extreme ignorance for the property of others!_

It was on the passenger side of his car, and before he could go check who the person was that had dared to touch his baby and make up his mind on how he was going to torture that person, he clicked the button for the car to open, then threw the backpack onto the back seat before he slowly put his girlfriend into the passenger seat of his car. She didn't seem awfully willing to remain seated, and so he pinned her arms down while fastening her seatbelt.

Her frustrated moans at being immobilised made him immediately regret having to treat his future wife like that, but there was no other way.

"Bella … Bella, please. It's for the best. I don't want you to fall out," he pleaded with her, trying to look her in her dead eyes to catch her attention.

She turned her head and groaned. It sounded sad… and hungry…

"Fine," Edward said with a drawn-out sigh, "you can have a light snack while we drive, but don't stain the car. Please, Bella, I'm begging you."

Her bad breath hit him even before he could hear her moan in response.

"No squirming, love. I'll go get you something to snack on," he pressed out, trying not to breathe in her presence as it made him feel nauseous and very sick to his stomach.

He rounded his car and immediately found the person who had felt the need to smear blood onto the side of his beautifulcar. "Angela," he said chidingly, "I always lock my doors." Looking at the dead girl for a moment longer, he then squatted down next to her and contemplated which part of her he could serve his girlfriend.

She had a head wound, similar to Bella's and suddenly a thought struck him. _Zombies eat flesh… and brain… why would they want to eat brain?_

Hearing another inane moan coming from his beloved girlfriend sitting in the car, and he suddenly felt very curious. _Maybe it makes them smarter … that's why they want to eat brain._

With one smooth gesture he cracked Angela's skull and, after pushing the uninteresting shards of bone out of the way, he carefully lifted the brain out of her head. He cut the stem on the sharp and ragged edge of her skull, then stood up and carried it over to his girlfriend like it was a rare treasure.

The sight of a fresh brain seemed to excite her and she moved in her seat like she wanted to jump up and down.

"Bella, calm down. I don't want you to hurt yourself," he said, but she didn't listen. Instead she startled drooling like a bloodhound – her appetite must be immense.

But he had immobilised her… so how was she supposed to eat her yummy brain?

He placed it in her lap and told her to wait a moment, then he shut the door and hurried over to the driver's side of the car. He sat down and while he shut the door, he called, "Just a moment, dear, I'll feed you with this scrumptious looking brain. Wouldn't you like that?"

After letting down the windows to hopefully alleviate the smell she was emitting, he turned his head to look at her and saw that the whole meal was already covered in slimy drool.

"I'm sorry," he said awkwardly and distorted his mouth. "I didn't realise you were that hungry."

Fishing a few tissues from the glove box in front of Bella, he then tried to wipe some of her goo off to be able to rip a piece out of the brain and feed it to her.

When he held a piece of the slippery and spongy mass up, she immediately opened her mouth as though he had trained her.

"Here you go."

While she got busy munching, he started the car and turned on the radio.

Pulling his car off the parking lot and onto the street, Edward sped along in hopes they would reach the hospital as quickly as possible without any accidents or road blockades.

There was still no music.

Every channel was reporting about the zombies, and screams and brainless moans filled the car until Edward decided to switch it off. Bella had noticed the zombie sounds, and now she was moaning as well again.

"What is it? Do you want more?" he asked and glanced at her, then cleared his throat to chide her. "No Bella, you haven't swallowed yet. I'm not giving you any more our you might choke. That's dangerous, love."

She complained, but he did not give in and focussed back on the road ahead.

Her moans suddenly ceased and it sounded like she couldn't breathe. Edward started to panic, but before he could even think about reaching over to help her, she had already vomited all over his open glove box, the floor and herself.

Edward was so shocked, he couldn't do anything but gasp in disbelief and stare at her.

She turned her head to look at him and after coughing once, spraying him and the centre console with pieces of brain and goo, she slowly blinked at him with her one eye that still had an intact eyelid, before looking back down at the brain in her lap.

"I think you had enough, my love," he growled while trying to wipe his face clean with the back of his hand.

She groaned and leaned forward - well, she didn't get very far - but she tried to reach the quite filthy brain lying in her lap to take a bite out of it.

"I really shouldn't have given you anything to eat, Bella, I am so sorry," Edward told her when the shock about his soiled car had subsided a little and he steered the car onto the parking lot of Forks Community Hospital. He didn't want to get mad at her, it wasn't her fault. It was Mike Newton's fault...

Even though she didn't seem to care what he said or that he had said anything at all, he just continued. "Carlisle might have to put you under general anaesthetic to fix you wounds and sew you fingers back on. You'll be as good as new soon, love, you'll see."

He tried not to hit any of the zombies or the few screeching people running around, and he didn't want to park his car in a puddle of blood. But no matter where he looked, everything looked pretty much the same. So he just put his car in park right where they were, and turned to look at Bella.

"We're here," he told her with a wide smile, then climbed out of the car and walked to the passenger door. He opened it and unbuckled Bella, who grunted when she realised she wasn't kept in place by a seatbelt anymore. The screeching of brakes made Edward turn around for a moment to see what was happening around them, and when he looked back at his girlfriend his eyes bulged.

She was holding the brain in both her dirty hands and shoved it right into her face while opening her mouth wide to bite a big chunk out of it.

"Bella, please. I told you you cannot have any more. What about your operation?" he queried and tried to take the brain from her, but she held onto it and moaned in displeasure that she would once again be robbed of her meal.

Edward needed to get a little rougher now, seeing that she did not let go, but all he succeeded in doing was that he broke her left thumb and the brain flew against his wind shield with a squishy noise before it slid down, leaving a dirty, wet trail behind.

Edward could have stomped his foot in frustration that his car was even dirtier now, but he had no time to worry about his Volvo. He pulled Bella out of the car and shut the door, leaning her against it so she wouldn't stumble and hurt herself.

"I need to get your fingers, stay here," he said with a raised finger and walked past her to open the rear door. He grabbed the backpack and shut the door again, when all of the sudden the sound of someone slumping to the ground met his ears.

He had the sinking feeling that it was Bella, and when he turned around he found her lying on the ground, face down.

"Aww, Bella," he half-whined in frustration that he couldn't leave her out of his sight anymore. She was even more clumsy than she had been as a human (if that was even possible), and he needed to make sure that she wouldn't hurt herself further.

She groaned as he picked her up from the ground and carefully started wiping dirt out of her face.

Her nose was completely damaged now and her front teeth were missing. Her two_ front teeth_ were missing and were nowhere to be found. How was he supposed to put her back together if he couldn't find any of her missing parts? He cringed a little when he realised that she must have swallowed them.

"How-? _Bella!_ Please be more careful with my most precious treasure, will you?"

She scrunched up what was left of her nose and burped at him through her new, huge tooth gap.

He snorted in disapproval and shook his head. "I know that you are going through a hard time right now, I understand that, love, I really do, and you know I love you with all my heart, but your manners leave much to be desired."

She moaned in response and turned around, heading for a bloody arm that was lying in the bushes like someone had put it there for later.

When Edward realised that she was about to feed _again_, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her in the direction of the main entrance of the little community hospital. "No Bella, come on. You are missing a few fingers, remember? Carlisle will sew them back on. You'll be as good as new in a few hours, I promise."

She didn't seem to believe him, because all she did was lift her mauled hand until it was right in front of her face.

"Yes, love. Soon you'll have your fingers back, isn't that wonderful?" he asked and nodded encouragingly, suddenly feeling a burst of hope that his Bella was still in there and could understand him.

She tried to bite into it.

A gasp escaped him when he saw that, and he immediately reached out and slapped her hand away before she could damage herself further. "No! Stop that!"

Her milky eyes turned sad and it almost broke his heart. "Aww, Bella... please," he said in a softer tone of voice now. "I know you are hungry, but you cannot have anything now. And your gorgeous body is not for eating, all right?"

He dragged her up the few steps and walked with her through the main entrance and into the foyer of the hospital. The glass doors were broken and smeared with blood, he could hear moans and screams coming from inside.

It was completely insane.

The caretaker, a man in his fifties with a half-bald head and piercing blue eyes, was fighting off some zombies with the help of a dirty, old mop before he decided that his pocket knife might be more effective. A few other zombies were lying at his feet – it looked like he must have tried his chemicals on them.

"Don't come in here! Go look for a car and drive far, far away, boy!" the muscular man shouted at Edward, waving his hand in his direction as if he wanted to warn him not to take yet another step into the chaos that were the corridors of this hospital.

Edward frowned at him in confusion. "No, I'm looking for my father, Dr. Carlisle Cullen. Do you happen to know where I can find him?" he asked politely and blinked his eyes at him while waiting for an answer.

"Upstairs, the doctors or what's left of them are upstairs!" he called over his shoulder, then managed to push the last zombie he was fighting with to the ground. Quickly he shoved it forward, then pulled the door of the janitorial room shut with all his might, trapping the nurse's head in the door until it scrunched and a puddle of dark blood slowly started to flood the floor. "Oh my God, it's right behind you! Run!" the man suddenly shouted when he realised that Bella wasn't just wounded, but a seriously mouldy looking zombie.

He pulled his knife from the nurse's shoulder and ran towards Edward and Bella, but Edward shoved his girlfriend protectively behind himself and held his hands up in a placating manner. "Don't! That's my girlfriend!"

"I'm sorry, boy, but she's dead. Step aside, I'll finish her for you."

"Touch her and I'll rip your head off and feed it to her," Edward hissed threateningly through bared teeth, his eyes black and shimmering with pure anger.

"Easy boy, open your eyes and look around. Almost everyone in this godforsaken town has turned into a zombie. And you will soon be one of them if you get so close to these stinking idiots."

"She would never hurt anyone, she's the most selfless and caring person you could ever meet!" he argued for his girlfriend, who suddenly found great interest in the caretaker who was still very much alive and probably extremely tasty.

She moaned and a gush of drool came from her mouth, soiling her and the floor and Edward's arm. He still held her back, especially when the caretaker reeled his own arm back before chasing it forward and trying to push his knife into Bella's head. Edward fended him off, then shoved him out of the way and against the wall. The poor man hit his head and sacked to the ground, leaving a wet, bloody trail behind. The impact had knocked him out and maybe even given him a fatal skull fracture.

Edward was fuming. "That's your fault. I didn't want to do it, but you made me. Nobody tries to kill my girlfriend, nobody!" he screamed at the unmoving man, then pulled Bella down the hall despite her struggles and complaints. The bleeding staff member was mouthwatering, and his fresh blood on the wall looked incredibly... _lickable_.

Edward tried to pick up his father's scent, but the stench of rotting bodies was so heavy in the air that it masked his father's unique smell. So he pulled Bella up the stairs and looked around until he found the operation room.

Perfect. Through the little windows in the door he could detect his father, who was currently tending to another doctor with a deep flesh wound on his upper arm. The poor man's glasses were crooked and the left piece was broken, and judging by the colour on his face, he was either extremely scared or close to dying.

Edward tried the door, but it seemed to be blocked from the inside.

"Carlisle? Carlisle!" Edward shouted and banged his fist against the door, trying to get his father's attention.

"Edward? Son, what are you doing here?" Carlisle asked and glanced over his shoulder, then turned his attention back to his bleeding colleague in order to keep him from bleeding dry and fainting.

"Carlisle, open the door!"

"Go home, son, go home and help your mother!" Carlisle called back, his eyes fixed on the other doctor's deep wound.

"Open the door or I'll break it down! I swear to God I'll do it!" Edward threatened, feeling extremely fed up with his father's ignorance. This was a matter of life and death, how could he be so blind and not realise it?

With a guttural growl Carlisle pushed away from his patient, then turned around and marched over to the door. He pushed a cart to the side, then removed a golf club from the door handles. He wrenched the doors open and looked at his son with wide eyes.

"What is it, Edward? Is everyone all right?"

"Yes, everyone's fine, even though I was that close to ripping Rosalie's-" "Edward, what are you doing here? I could use some help if you would like to stay here, but otherwise I want you to go home to your mother."

Quickly shaking his head, he said, "No, I need your help. _Bella_ needs your help."

"Where is she?" he asked, feeling a surge of panic that the girl might be in danger. It had taken an eternity for his boy to finally find someone – it would be a shame if she went out the window now during a zombiecalypse.

"Are you kidding me?! Bella is right here!" he screamed in his father's face - his nerves were raw and there was absolutely no patience left in him.

Carlisle looked past his son and saw a rotting zombie - grosser than any he had seen before - staggering on the spot and moaning incoherent nonsense.

Trying to look past his son and that thing, he asked with a frown, "Where? Is she hurt?"

"_This_ is Bella!" he hissed and pulled her to stand in front of himself, so Carlisle would see that his help was needed. "You need to help her!"

"Son, she's... dead. Stonedead. There's nothing I can do for you. Now please take it out and let me do my job."

"Take it out? She's not a bag of trash! She's my _girlfriend_!"

"Edward, she's rotten. She smells. She's dead. What do you want me to do?" he asked and shrugged his shoulders, then glanced back at his suffering colleague who desperately needed medical attention.

"I have her missing fingers in this backpack. I want you to sew them back on."

Carlisle rolled his eyes and heaved a silent sigh, finding himself growing impatient with his son for he was momentarily wasting his time. "The fingers don't need to be sewed back on if you want Charlie to see her one more time. He'll understand, Edward."

A roar of frustration escaped Edward. "She's not dead, dammit Carlisle! Sew her fingers back on, I command you!"

With one raised eyebrow Carlisle stared at him before exhaling slowly. "You better drop Bella off somewhere and get home now. There is nothing, I repeat,_ nothing_ I can do for you or... _her_. I have injured people I need to tend to."

"But she's injured, too! She's missing her fingers, and see? She has a huge head wound! Emmett poked around in it and Rose nearly shot her! My beautiful Bella..."

Carlisle shook his head, groaning, then shut the door again, bolted it and walked back over to his colleague to take care of his wound.

Edward could hear him mutter something about military school and that made him stomp his foot in rage.

"Fine, I don't need your help! You're a horrible doctor anyways!"

He pulled Bella along and in the direction of the stairs, wanting to take her to their house now. He would bring her home and tend to her wounds, yes. She'd be as good as new in a few hours.

And Esme would be so happy to see Bella again, she would cheer and cry tears of joy at seeing her human daughter. It would be beautiful.

Bella would live with them from now on, there was no better place for her than the bosom of the family.

They left the hospital and Edward headed for his car standing in the middle of the parking lot. Two zombies had found the bloody hand print on the side of the Volvo, and they were currently trying to gnaw the stained paint off his car.

These brainless idiots ...

He pushed them away, making them stumble to the ground and hit their heads on the asphalt with sickening crunching sounds, then opened the passenger door and sat Bella down. He strapped her in - yes, she complained, but safety comes first, always! - then got into the driver's seat. "We're going home now, love. You're going to see Esme again, isn't that wonderful? Oh, she'll be overjoyed to see you again!" he exclaimed, then started the car and pulled onto the road. "You can call her Mom if you want. I'm sure she'd love that. Oh Bella, everything's going to be perfect!"

He was giddy with excitement. Soon they would get married and everything would be perfect, he _knew_ it.

Bella moaned whenever she saw a zombie cross the street or stand on the pavement, gnawing on something bony or slimy or bloody.

"You're just as excited as I am, aren't you?" he asked glancing at her while steering the car in the direction of their home.

She just drooled on herself in response.

But neither her smell nor her inane moaning could dampen his spirits. He was extremely excited about the prospect of Bella living with them, and he was looking forward to surprising Esme. Esme, his loving mother with the biggest heart in the world - Bella would feel at home instantly.

A warm, fuzzy feeling was forming in the pit of his stomach when their house came into view, and he hit the horn twice to let Esme know that they would be home any second now.

He stopped the car in front of the garage, not even bothering to park it inside. No, this day was too good to be true, and he wanted to carry Bella over the threshold. Oh yes, it would be so romantic.

Climbing out of the car, he sped to the other side and opened the door for the love of his life. But when she didn't climb out, he slapped his forehead and let out a laugh, realising that she couldn't get out as long as she was still buckled up. "Sorry, love."

He reached in and unfastened her seatbelt, then helped her step out of the car.

"Mom?" he called while guiding Bella up the stairs to the front door, a big smile plastered across his face. He looked like Christmas came early.

"Get that disgusting thing off my doorstep!" Esme screeched after she had opened the door and saw what her son was bringing home. In an instant she had pulled an umbrella from the umbrella stand and was now trying to stab Bella with it.

"Mom, no! Stop it! This is Bella, see?" he asked, extremely shocked and disappointed about Esme's reaction. He had expected her to hug Bella, not try to push her down the stairs with Alice's neon pink umbrella.

Her mouth opened of its own accord and she looked at her first-born as if he had lost his mind.

"Edward, sweetheart, I love you so very much, you know that, but if you bring this nasty creature into my house I will put you in a corner for a_ very_ long time."

"Mom, you're not listening. This is _Bella_. You love her!"

Esme figured that the word 'love' was a bit exaggerated now that she looked at the icky zombie.

"Ugh, honey, did you play in the sewers again? _You stink!_" Esme exclaimed and pinched her nose with two fingers while her shoulders shook with disgust. But then her eyes bulged as she realised that it wasn't her son, but the thing he had brought here. The zombie was producing some very nasty, foul-smelling substance that was currently dripping onto the floor.

"Oh my God, did it just spit on my doormat?!" Esme gasped in disbelief and suddenly started waving the umbrella around again, trying her best to poke Bella and hopefully push her down the stairs to chase her away from her wonderfully clean and stink-free house.

"No!" Edward shouted and wrenched it from her hands only to throw it into the nearest bush. "Esme, she cannot control it, just look at her! She cannot close her mouth, she's kind of lacking a bottom lip."

"She's lacking a lot more, especially manners," Esme remarked and crossed her arms over her chest, never taking her eyes off the little present her son had dared to bring home.

"Don't talk about your future daughter-in-law like that! And get out of the way, we're going up to my room."

Esme raised an eyebrow at her son. "_You_ can go upstairs to your room, but_ that_ is staying outside. And I can assure you that a wedding between you two is definitely not going to happen," she told him, wagging a finger in front of his face.

"Esme," he groaned, "now stop being so difficult and step out of the way."

"It will only soil my floor and stain my walls. No."

His eyes narrowed when he realised just how childish his mother could be when she wanted to. But he needed to bring Bella upstairs to his room to tend to her wounds, and he didn't have time for chatting. "Carlisle told me to go home and that's what I am doing. Now let us enter."

She gaped at him. "Carlisle told you to bring a _zombie_ into my home?"

"Yes, he loves Bella and wants me to help her recover."

"_R-recover?_" Esme asked hesitantly and eyed the thing carefully. She had absolutely no idea how in the world that girl could ever recover from being dead and falling apart.

"Of course," he affirmed, nodding his head once.

Esme looked back at Bella and scrunched up her nose. Never ever would she have thought that Carlisle could be so cruel. Letting something that dirty and smelly into her house? Why would he want that to happen? And why would her loving husband suddenly want to torture her so?

"Would you step aside now so that we can enter?" Edward asked in an annoyed tone of voice, getting more impatient by the second as if Bella was falling apart right beside him if he didn't act immediately.

Well, she kinda was...

With a sloppy sound her left ear landed on the doormat right next to the drool stain, and seeing that only made her groan in... happiness? Frustration? It was hard to tell as zombies weren't exactly known for their great articulation skills.

Esme's face scrunched up with unwillingness. She looked behind herself, looked at the shiny marble floor, the pristine foyer with the spotless white walls... and a low whimper escaped her lips when she glanced back at what her son wanted her to allow him to invite inside.

Edward cleared his throat after he had picked up Bella's ear and it made Esme look back at him. "How about you go find a nice hotel? I've seen a cosy little lodge near... um... I'm sure it - I mean _Bella_ - would absolutely love it there."

"No, we would like to be with the family. It'll help Bella - she needs her family's support right now."

"I have a little greenhouse she might like," she tried in a last attempt to keep her house drool- and stench-free. Rotting zombies weren't exactly sanitary and there weren't enough air fresheners in the world to make living with them even remotely bearable.

"Mom!" Edward shouted and his eyes darkened instantly. He was losing his patience with his mother who was more than just a little unwilling to let his beautiful girlfriend enter the house.

Desperation was clear in her eyes when she looked up at him. "But Edward, honey, be reasonable... what if one of us will lose control and drink her blood? It would break my heart...," she said while Edward grabbed Bella by the wrist and pulled her into the house, shoving past Esme.

"Save it, mother."

"Are you sure your father meant _this_ home when he told you to get her home? What about Bella's? Wouldn't she feel better over there with Charlie?"

"Edward?" she called over her shoulder,"_Edward?!_ Awww..."

She looked after her youngest son and the thing as they vanished up the stairs - Edward had picked Bella up and carried her, because he seemed to be afraid he might pull her arm off or that she would lose her broken foot on the way - and Esme could practically see a trail of stink in the air that they were pulling behind themselves.

What a horrible day...

With a deep, drawn-out sigh she made her way over to the kitchen to collect all the things she would need to get the front porch and the foyer sparkling clean again. And she was planning on burning the doormat.

* * *

The loud roaring of Emmett's Jeep and her sons' cheering made Esme step away from the crackling fire in the fireplace and walk into the foyer. She opened the door and stood there, hugging herself while leaning against the door frame.

Emmett jumped out of the car, looked at the bloody baseball bat in his hand, then threw it into the bushes behind himself with a shrug. He rubbed his hands together and judging by the smile on his face he must have had quite an exciting day so far.

Jasper wore the same smile as Em, and when he climbed out of the driver's seat, Emmett immediately walked over to him and threw an arm around his brother's shoulders. Chatting away and laughing they walked up the few steps to the front door of their home.

They hadn't noticed their mother standing there, but when they reached her and came to a halt in front of her, they saw that she didn't look too well. She had one arm wrapped tightly around her torso, while the other one was resting on it with its elbow as she chewed on her nails like she was feeling completely uneasy and nervous.

"What's up, Mom? We're back!" Emmett exclaimed and gave her a peck on the cheek, but weirdly enough she didn't react to that.

"Esme?" Jasper asked, eyeing her with a concerned expression on his face as he could feel waves of uneasiness and disgust rolling off of her.

Now even the girls frowned at Esme who was behaving rather strangely.

"Emmett," their mother suddenly said in a half-whine and gave him a pleading look, "please, you have got to do something. I cannot take it anymore."

That just served to confuse them even more instead of bring light into the dark.

He squinted his eyes at her, trying to decipher just what she was getting at.

"Please, just do something," she begged, her black eyes staring right back into his. "This is... not right."

Woah, she was seriously upset.

"Wh-" he was about to ask, but as he let go of his brother and took a step into the house, he suddenly heard just what exactly their mother must be talking about.

Rhythmic moaning sounded down to them, and judging by the smell, they knew exactly who was the cause for these noises and where they were coming from.

"Are they...?" Jasper asked, but he looked too uncomfortable to finish his question.

"Please," Esme just begged again.

Emmett and Jasper exchanged a look, then gazed at their wives who were still standing by the car. Both of the girls held up their hands with grossed out facial expressions and shook their heads, apparently not willing to have anything to do with it.

"Oh darlin', don't cry!" Jasper exclaimed right at that moment and jumped down the stairs to hug his wife. He held her in his strong arms, then looked back at his brother over the head of his wife. "I'm needed here, Em, you go upstairs. I'll calm the girls."

_Great, what a wuss._

Emmett also didn't want to go upstairs to Edward's room as he already had an idea what they must be doing, but since everyone else refused to go upstairs, it was on him. Like always.

He made his way up the stairs like he always did, taking three steps at a time. But when he reached the first floor, he slowed down and just looked up the stairs. The moaning coming from the uppermost floor was definitely louder now that he was closer and Bella's rotten smell got heavier as well.

_Dude, stop it. Necrophilia is not cool, okay?_

His thoughts went unheard it seemed, as Edward as well as the zombie just continued to gross out every single member of the family that was unfortunate enough to be present at the moment.

Emmett took a deep breath to fortify his resolve to break up the 'little' romp, but he immediately regretted doing it. You would have thought that his nose was used to the stench of foulness by now, but nope - it wasn't.

He slowly walked up the next flight of stairs and looked down the hall to see if 'the air was clear', ha ha.

The floor was stained, no doubt Bella's doing, but apart from that everything was all right.

He slowly crept towards his younger brother's room and saw that the door was ajar.

Admittedly, he was a wee bit curious as to how exactly this would work between someone with superpower and someone who was falling apart and smelled like a dump.

And, of course,... how did Edward function under these circumstances? Zombie Bella was the exact opposite of sexy and sweet-smelling... heck, she couldn't even do her oh-so-sensual lip biting as she had already chewed her bottom lip off and eaten it. Or maybe she and Mike Newton had been making out and he had ripped it off and swallowed it. The thought drew a silent snicker from him until a loud moan coming from Bella made him focus on the task at hand again.

Putting the flat of his hand against the door, he slowly pushed it open a crack until he could peek into the room.

Bella was lying on the bed, writhing as much as her slow brain would let her... but the weird thing was that Edward was neither underneath nor on top of her, but standing _next_ to her.

His hands were on Bella's breastbone, pumping down again and again, while he was breathing heavily of effort or something. Bella was moaning, too, because he wasn't letting her go and she didn't like being restrained on a bed when she could roam the town and fill her belly with all kinds of human delicacies.

"Edward!" Emmett exclaimed as relief surged through him and he stepped into the room. "Oh my God, I am so happy to see that... to see _that!_"

Edward just grunted in response.

"But... what exactly are you doing there, bro? You're scaring Esme, you know."

Without looking up or stopping what he was doing, he replied, "It'll be over soon, tell her to go wait outside."

Emmett blinked at his brother, then scratched the back of his head. "If you want to kill a zombie, maybe you should do it outside... just saying."

Edward shot him a glare and growled, never stopping to press down on Bella's torso.

"I'm not killing her, you fool, I would never kill her."

Emmett snorted. "Well, whatever it is you're doing, I don't think she's enjoying it very much."

There was a pair of scissors lying on the bedside table, he noticed, along with some mull, a surgical needle and antiseptic.

_What kind of creepy experiments are you doing here?!_

"I'm saving her life."

Emmett didn't know if he should cheer or throw up. "Dude... I'm not sure this is a good idea. Stop it now."

"Get out of my room."

But he remained standing where he was. Looking Bella over and trying to understand just what the heck his brother was doing, he suddenly found himself frowning. "Hey... what happened to her front teeth?"

"She fell on her face."

Emmett started snickering but quickly caught himself when Edward glared at him.

"That is not funny. It could have killed her. Thank God she's fine."

"Fine, yes indeed." Emmett nodded his head. "But maybe you should stop this. It's great that you sewed her fingers back on and tried to do something with her nose... trust me, she looks... well, she's a stunner. But you won't manage to turn her human again. That's impossible, she's dead. You two won't ever have sex, you've missed the boat, bro."

"I'm not turning her human, I'm _saving_ her."

With an uneasy feeling Emmett hesitantly walked further into the room, looking at the moaning Bella lying flat on her back on Edward's bed. The golden sheets were stained and bloody, but that didn't seem to disturb either one of them. Bella looked more demolished than when he had last seen her this morning, but apart from that he couldn't find any hint as to what exactly his brother was trying to do.

But then a look into Edward's face told him everything he needed to know.

"You have got to be kidding me," he breathed, completely perplexed and clueless as to how he should react. Again, he felt like throwing up... or maybe cracking up... but he just remained quiet then.

There was black blood on Edward's lips... his chin was smeared and there was gore all over the front of his shirt.

"Please don't tell me that-"

"It works, I can feel it."

"Do you have shit for brains? I mean, seriously, of all the stupid things you have ever done, this is-"

It sounded quite funny coming from Emmett, but at the moment Edward did not feel like pointing that out or even laughing at him. Instead a loud, threatening growl rumbled in his chest and he narrowed his eyes at Emmett.

"Get out of my room, this is none of your business."

"But-"

And then they heard a heart beat.

Both boys gasped at the same time, only their facial expressions differed. Emmett looked absolutely panic-stricken, while Edward's eyes sparkled with happiness.

"Now all we have to do is wait," Edward said and directed a brilliant yet quite disturbing smile at his brother.

Emmett's mouth opened and closed, then he just shook his head and left the room.

As soon as he reached the living room downstairs, Jasper and Esme came walking towards him with inquisitive looks in their eyes. Alice sat curled up on the couch, and Rose was sitting beside her, rubbing her arm in a comforting manner. All of them were extremely tense.

Emmett just distorted his mouth as he focussed on his mother and brother. "Good news or bad news?"

"Um... the good news first, Emmett," Esme said hesitantly, fearing that even the good ones would be horrible.

"Edward is not a pervert who defiles corpses."

Sounded good to Em, and the rest of the family seemed to share his view as everyone suddenly sighed in relief.

"Now give us the bad news, Em," Jasper demanded.

"Well... um... we kinda heard a heart beat... that developed with a little help of vampire venom."

It was quite funny how suddenly everyone gaped at him. Well, except for Alice... she just scrunched up her face and covered her ears, rocking back and forth on the couch like she was trying to make herself believe that none of this was real.

Rose hugged her to herself while Esme ran over to them to comfort her little girl. "It'll be all right, Alice-baby, don't worry," she whispered over and over again.

"I don't know what's going to happen...," she whined and continued to press her hands to her ears and stare into nothing.

Emmett clapped his hands together once. "Well, great! Life never gets boring, huh?"

Esme lifted her head to shoot him a warning look.

"Too early, hm? Sorry."

Heavy steps were heading down the stairs, and a few moments later Edward came into view. He looked exhausted and kinda stressed, but overall he seemed quite content with himself.

"What has gotten into you? Have you lost your mind?" Jasper asked angrily.

"She'll be fine," he sighed and smiled as though he hadn't heard his brother.

"What's that on your face?"

Edward blinked at him, then quickly ran his arm over his mouth. When he looked down at it, he saw smears of Bella's dead blood soiling his sleeve, but then he just shrugged his shoulders. "That's nothing."

Jasper frowned at him. "You don't look too good, do you know that?"

"I'm fine, just feeling a little exhausted. That'll change as soon as Bella wakes up," he replied and blinked his eyes when he heard a weird gurgling sound coming from his stomach.

Jasper and Em eyed him sceptically. He didn't just look exhausted, but pale. Pale with a tinge of greenish... something.

A loud thud coming from Edward's bedroom made them snap their heads up and look at the ceiling like that way they could see what was going on.

With wide eyes Edward and Emmett bolted upstairs to find out what was going on in his room. Edward feared that his beloved was looking for him or had fallen out of her bed and hurt herself, while Emmett was just bursting with curiosity. Nobody knew if Bella would really turn into a vampire now as she hadn't been human but a zombie when the venom had entered her body.

So what kind of a fucked-up being was she turning into?

They reached the room quickly and as they looked inside, both of them needed a moment to really understand what they were seeing.

Bella wasn't lying on the bed anymore, but instead she was standing in the middle of the room with her back to them.

She didn't really look any better, they could still see her gaping head wound and perceived the gross smell that came from her rotting brain.

"Bella?" Edward asked carefully while taking a step towards her.

The sound of his voice made her turn around to look at him, and the speed of her movement surprised them for a moment.

She let out a rattling groan when she saw them, but deeming their smell unappealing she remained where she was. Her head snapped to the side when she must have smelled something else, and suddenly she was busy gnawing on the fingers Edward had sewed on her wounded hand. It grew apparent that he hadn't found _her_ fingers, as she ripped one off with her teeth and chewed on it before taking it out of her mouth again and throwing it away. It almost hit Edward in the face and he farted in fear.

The sound surprised her, making her snarl, but then she turned around and ran onto the balcony, jumping off.

They shot each other a look before hurrying after her, stopping at the railing. Immediately they started scanning the area with their eyes, but she had already disappeared into the thick forest.

"Dude...," Emmett said, sucking in a breath before distorting his mouth, "you are fucked."

"We need to go look for her, something must have gone wrong," Edward replied with wide eyes as he started to feel a panic rising in him.

"Yes, something must have gone wrong," Jasper called from the doorway, narrowing his eyes at Edward when he turned around to look at him. "You idiot just created a new kind of zombie." Then he crossed his arms over his chest and snorted before adding, "Moron."

* * *

Emmett grinned at his family, his golden eyes bright with joy, while Edward came stomping down the stairs looking positively livid. He snatched his car keys off the sideboard in the foyer, then walked in the direction of the kitchen. "Go to hell," he snapped at his dark-haired brother, then vanished into the garage. Only a few seconds later and the motor of his Volvo roared to life. The tires screeched as Edward chased it out of the garage and then sped down the path in the direction of Forks.

Carlisle just dropped the newspaper to his lap and pinched the bridge of his nose, while Esme stared at Em with wide eyes and slowly shook her head in disbelief.

"So," Alice giggled and sat up straighter on the couch. "What happens to Bella?"

"Well-" "And Edward farted?"

"Yes, yes!" Emmett nodded his head excitedly and was just about to explain when Rosalie stood up from her seat and turned to face Em.

"Okay," she said and patted her husband's cheek, letting out a deep sigh. "Let's go on another hunt, hm? The blood will do you good, babe."

* * *

**:D Now you know why there are slow zombies and really fast zombies ... it's Edward's fault! Hahaha!**

**Oh, and as you might have noticed this former One-shot will now turn into a Three-shot. Well, I suck at planning things and so I didn't know this would happen *shrug***

******Thank you so much for reading and I hope you liked this little trip to Emmett's little world of... imagination and dreams ;-)** Feel free to leave a comment!


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